Updated February 22, 2018 at 11:30 PM;Posted February 22, 2018 at 10:00 AM

From left: Usman (Imran Sheikh), Alejandro (Andrew Aaron Valdez) and Adil (Ali Andre Ali) are contestants vying for U.S. citizenship in a game show hosted by Chris (Jens Rasmussen) and Sherry (Leila Buck) in the Cleveland Public Theatre world premiere production "American Dreams."(Photo by Steve Wagner)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - In "American Dreams," three game-show contestants compete for a unique prize. Not A BRAND NEW CAR or A TRIP TO ANTIGUA, but something much more valuable: U.S. citizenship.

They are Usman (Imran Sheikh), a shaggy-haired, "Star Trek"-loving Pakistani cartoonist; the fastidious and philanthropic Adil (Ali Andre Ali), a Palestinian chef; and Alejandro (Andrew Aaron Valdez), a Mexican medic and a so-called Dreamer - an undocumented immigrant brought across the border as a child.

We the people - in this case, me and others filling the seats at Cleveland Public Theatre's James Levin Theatre opening night - are part of the action, serving as a live studio audience. The show is "coming to you from Cleveland, Ohio!," a fact punctuated by a swooping, aerial view of the city on a jumbo screen.

Two APPLAUSE signs light up, letting us know when to clap. If we aren't raucous enough, Bree, the floor director (India Nicole Burton), is there to encourage us to whoop louder.

Hosts Christian "Chris" White (Jens Rasmussen) and Sherry Brown (Lebanese-American playwright Leila Buck) take the trio through four rounds of play. We are then asked to vote, a la "America's Got Talent" or "The Voice," for who has earned the right to be "our newest neighbor."

The issue is a polarizing one, something its creators know, which is why discussions about U.S. immigration policy are easier to swallow when framed as a TV game show, one of America's most obnoxious but innocuous exports.

"American Dreams" isn't shrill or preachy. It doesn't advocate for open borders, nor does it embrace the choking off of all entry. It's interactive, fun and darkly comic - until it turns tragic. The ensemble is unnervingly believable, hosts and hopefuls alike. And, although we are ostensibly watching the competitors, it's actually we who are under scrutiny.

The play, in development since 2016, shrewdly turns a klieg light on our souls, searching every corner of us to expose our beliefs and our biases - not so much to the world but to ourselves. This is bold, topical theater, the kind of work that enlightens as it entertains.

What do we expect from newcomers? Do we ask more of them than we ask of native-born Americans?

We enter through an airport-style metal detector. A disembodied voice directs us to complete two questionnaires. The longest form demands a detailed family history, something that feels invasive and none of anyone's business, offering a brief hint of what asylum seekers and applicants for naturalization experience. ("Which of the following religious belief systems best describes your own?")

This "pre-screening" is done by two flak-jacketed guards with billy clubs in their belts, working for "North American Transportation, Security and Immigration" or NATSI. (Get it?)

The back stories of the characters are layered and compelling, shaped by real-world research and workshop improvisations leading up to the world premiere at CPT.

(Alejandro, in particular, is based on conversations Buck and director and developer Tamilla Woodard had with an actor from the Cleveland area.)

At first, the competitors are open, eager to please and well versed in U.S. history and the nation's laws, as evidenced in "How America Works!," a "buzzer-style quiz taken directly from the U.S. citizenship test."

Questions start easy ("What is one branch of the U.S. government?") but get harder ("In the event of impeachment, who is next in line for the presidency after the vice president and speaker of the House?")

But even a poll of the audience fails to produce the correct answer: President Pro Tempore of the Senate Orrin Hatch, who recently sent letters of apology to the exes of former White House staff secretary Rob Porter for defending the accused wife beater as a "decent man." (The taciturn Rex Tillerson is fourth in line for the presidency.)

Like Round 1, Round 2 is designed to show us how much (or little) we know about our country and fellow citizens. Can contestants, with the help of audience volunteers, accurately answer three questions formulated using "national surveys about American cultural preferences and norms?" (No, we cannot - including the fact that pizza is America's favorite comfort food, although it should clearly be mac and cheese.)

In Round 3 - "Aliens With Extraordinary Skills!" - the hopefuls demonstrate their various talents, because who wants "unskilled" emigres - as the Trump administration has described undesirables from countries other than Norway - pouring into the Nifty 50?

As the men move from round to round, their complexities, their gifts and flaws, are revealed, until the uncomfortable final round.

We learn that although Alejandro has lived most of his life in America, he's recently been deported.

Adil dreams of bringing his restaurant cum soup kitchen concept to the United States, but when he's on "The Hot Seat," we discover he's spent time in prison. (This according to "files we received from Israeli intelligence," says Chris.)

Usman is a practicing Muslim. "How many times a day do you pray?" Chris wants to know. And, didn't he attend a madrasa that didn't allow women? Sherry asks.

Throughout the interrogation, hosts pause to take a "temperature check" of the audience, asking for our thumbs up or thumbs down, as though we were Roman emperors deciding whether a defeated gladiator lived or died.

In the performance I attended, Alejandro won the right to call himself an American. (At another performance, it could just as easily be Adil or Usman.)

And the losers? Let's just say the Billy Club Boys lived up to that NATSI acronym when one of them refuses to go quietly along with his deportation.

This smart, provocative play deserves to go on to be produced in as many U.S. cities as are on the map. It's what we the people deserve - art that spurs thoughtful, intelligent deliberation about immigration rather than the empty, over-heated rhetoric we hear from our leaders.

That's this American critic's dream.

REVIEW

American Dreams

What: The play by Leila Buck. Directed and developed by Tamilla Woodard. World premiere.

When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Monday through March 3. Because of the play's interactive nature, there will be no late seating.